$2,134,374

34,397

Real quick, Star Citizen is:

A rich universe focused on epic space adventure, trading and dogfighting in first person.

Single Player – Offline or Online(Drop in / Drop out co-op play)

Persistent Universe (hosted by US)

Mod-able multiplayer (hosted by YOU)

No Subscriptions

No Pay to Win

For more information, there’s a lot to read down below, and there’s our ‘living document’ The Star Citizen Project you can comb through also. Also - all games come with a digital copy of the Manual.

Here’s the deal. We’re doing crowdfunding on Kickstarter and on our own website (over here)

The great news is that we’ve already raised enough money to ensure this project will happen! But we don’t want to stop there. We have a lot more we want to add to Star Citizen and we need your help to do it!

The money raised on our site and here on Kicktstarter are combined to determine which of the main stretch goals we’ve met, but Kickstarter has its own unique set of stretch goals! These will be ADDITIONAL to the main ones.

Please note that shipping is required for tiers below $125 in the US. If outside the US shipping required if not already included with the tier.

Fold up glossy full color map of the game universe +$10

CD of game soundtrack +$20

Hardback bound 42 Page Book “Squadron 42 Manual” +$20

Hardback bound 42 page Book “Engineering Manual for Modders” +$20

Hardback bound 42 page book “The Making of Star Citizen” +$25

Spaceship shaped USB stick +$30

When the Kickstarter campaign concludes you will receive a survey that will allow you to select how you would like the add-on money assigned.

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"

The traditional publishers don't believe in PC or Space Sims. Venture Capitalists only want to back mobile or social gaming start ups.

We say they're wrong. We say that there is a large audience of PC gamers that want sophisticated games built for their platform. And inside this audience, a significant group of people that have always loved space games, and if given a quality one again will be happy to play it.

Ask not what your genre can do for you, but what you can do for your favorite genre.

Let's put high-end PC gaming and Space Sims back on the map!

Star Citizen brings the visceral action of piloting interstellar craft through combat and exploration to a new generation of gamers at a level of fidelity never before seen. At its core Star Citizen is a destination, not a one-off story. It's a complete universe where any number of adventures can take place, allowing players to decide their own game experience. Pick up jobs as a smuggler, pirate, merchant, bounty hunter, or enlist as a pilot, protecting the borders from outside threats. Chris Roberts has always wanted to create one cohesive universe that encompasses everything that made Wing Commander and Privateer / Freelancer special. A huge sandbox with a complex and deep lore allowing players to explore or play in whatever capacity they wish. That universe is Star Citizen.

The Reasons You'll Want to Play Star Citizen

A huge universe to explore, trade and adventure in

Space is unending, endless and so are your opportunities. Strike
out to make your fortune amongst the Stars or sign-up for a tour of duty in the
UEE Fleet.

Constantly expanding and evolving universe

We’re committed to making Star Citizen a living, breathing universe
that is its own entity. It will be a constantly shifting and evolving place for
players to explore and affect.

Micro updates rule!

We’re not interested in having yearly updates. Once live, we will have a
team of people adding content on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. So we’ll always be adding
data, stories and campaigns as well as reacting to the needs and actions of the
players.

Squadron 42 - A Wing Commander style single player mode, playable OFFLINE if
you want

Playable offline or online, co-op with friends, you sign up for
a tour of duty with the UEE fleet, manning the front lines, protecting settlements
from Vanduul warbands.

Life during wartime

If you distinguish yourself in combat, you might be invited to
join the legendary 42nd Squadron. Much like the French Foreign Legion of old,
they can always be found in the toughest areas of operation and always snatch victory
from the jaws of defeat, regardless of the odds.

The conflict never ends

Upon completion of your tour you’ll re-enter the persistent Star
Citizen universe with some credits in your pocket and Citizenship to help you make
your way. But in the universe of Star Citizen
when one conflict ends, another is just around the corner. You’ll have opportunity to spend more time with
your squadron mates as additional Campaigns are released as part of the content
update plan.

Actions of the players impact the universe and become part of
its history and lore

The universe will change based on the players' actions and adventures
allowing them to become part of the history of the universe. As an example, players
can scan for gravitational anomalies while out in space. If one is discovered and
the player manages to successfully navigate this uncharted jump point, they’ll be
able to sell their Nav- Computers recording of their jump flight path for a great
profit to a space company for other users to download. But the real prize is getting
the system or jump-point named after them!

Allowing user generated content is a key design goal

Our modding tools will allow players to design new ships for
both submission to the persistent RSI ship dealer network or to build custom ships
and items for the self-hosted multiplayer mode.

It’s about the gameplay and your interactions with others

We plan to put a lot of social ideas in the universe. Since the
universe is dynamic, it will create some divisions and factions. For example, it’s
a perfectly valid choice not to be a Citizen and operate outside the protection
of Earth. We think there will be people that gravitate to crime or helping enforce
the law or defending the galaxy from the alien raiders or just accumulating as much
money as possible. We want to include all these social divisions so players will
gravitate to one or the other much like the real world operates.

Fully dynamic economy driven by player actions

If too many people fly iron ore to the smelting plants of New
Pittsburgh, steel prices will drop. Buy low… sell high…
you hope.

The cost of society

In game trade landing and trade tariffs pay for law and order
in the civilized systems. Want to make a bigger profit? Try the outer world -
outside earth’s infrastructure and protection. The downside? No military or local
police to protect you from an opportunistic pirate!

Money isn’t everything

You could be a trader, a miner or an industrial magnate. Amass
great wealth or just run enough missions to earn a comfortable living and upgrades
for your ship.

Space is empty but you’re never really alone

If caught alone in an online ambush, send a distress broadcast
to your friends and if they’re nearby they can jump in-system to save your bacon.
In each combat instance player slots are reserved for your friends so you can rally
forces to join you in combat!

Bigger ships offer bigger multi-player action

On
larger ships, friends can join you to man turrets, repair systems, or switch with
you on the pilot’s chair. Think the Millennium Falcon with Han-Solo piloting and
Luke on the turret.

Full rigid body simulation of all spaceships

You wanted proper Newtonian mechanics. You got it! Spaceships
adjust their trajectory and orientation just like the real thing.

Intelligent Flight Control System (IFCS)

Like a modern day F-35, the ships have fly by wire systems which
take the player’s inputs and then translate them into the commands for the ship’s
engine and thrusters to articulate and deliver the required thrust to achieve the
pilot’s request.

Dynamic Ship Maneuverability

Ship’s performance is calculated dynamically based on various
physical variables and the ability of your jet maneuvering to deliver thrust towards
a requested vector. What does this mean? Infinite customization with component
damage, mass or energy changes affecting maneuverability on the fly – allowing for endless combat strategies and results.

Ship Components matter!

Because
we are fully simulating the physics and flight dynamics, the actual components
matter. If a port thruster is damaged, it will affect your maneuverability organically.
If you upgrade your thruster package with
enhanced thrusters that gimbal faster and deliver more thrust it will affect your
performance. Dump cargo, you may be able to get the edge in turning in a dogfight.

10X the detail of current AAA games

Most current gen “AAA” games have around 10,000 polygons for
a character and 30,000 or so for a vehicle. In Star Citizen, the characters are
detailed at 100,000 polygons, the fighter at 300,000 and the Space Carrier 7 million!
This allows unparalleled detail, making the visuals more immersive than has ever
been achieved before.

Everything you would imagine would move or articulate on a spaceship
or a device – does!

Every spaceship is built from 100s of sub-components, many of
them moving and articulating just like they would in the “real” world. If a component
gets damaged during combat be prepared to feel the effects on your ship.

Range of scale never seen before in a game

From a vast 1km long carrier to a 27m fighter, to your 1.8m
tall pilot, Everything is rendered and to the same level of detail. Zoom
in to the paneling of the carrier and its texel density is the same as the 27m fighter.
All without a load screen or loss of visual fidelity.

Really feel the scale
of ships and space battles

Because of the ability of the game to scale seamlessly you could
be looking out the windows on the bridge of a carrier watching the battle unfold
or jump into a cockpit and take the fight to the enemy.

Joystick, gamepad, mouse, keyboard are all supported.

We’ve all got our preferences, so why be forced to choose?

Advanced peripheral support

As part of commitment to high end gaming we are dedicated to
supporting the more exotic enthusiast peripherals; HOTAS, flight chair, rudder pedals.
It’s all about the immersion and if you've got the equipment we want to support
it!

Virtual Reality is here!

We have backed Oculus Rift and will support it in Star Citizen / Squadron 42. Who doesn't want to sit in their cockpit,
hands on your joystick and throttle, swiveling your head, to track that enemy fighter
that just blew by?

Next generation, TODAY

Built on top of Crytek’s award winning CryEngine3 technology,
Star Citizen’s engine is built to scale for the PC’s of today and tomorrow.

A PC gaming enthusiast’s friend!

As you upgrade your PC, Star Citizen will take advantage of your
extra processor cores, memory or GPUs. This is why you’re a PC gamer – you love
being on the cutting edge, not stuck in the past!

Today’s game publishers, like their Hollywood counterparts, want predictable returns from sequels to last year’s hits. A game in an out- of-favor genre, set in an original universe is viewed as a bad investment. And the concept of developing a new product exclusively for the PC sends publishing executives and most Venture Capitalists running for the exits.

And that hero is you, the unappreciated PC gamer. The ignored Space Sim fan.

This is your chance to have your voice heard. To tell the world that high end PC gaming lives. That you want to sit in the cockpit of your space fighter defending the galaxy or making your fortune as a wily entrepreneur.

Star Citizen is meant to be everything you ever dreamed you could have in a Space-Sim, all in one glorious ever-evolving package.

We know it may not look like this, but we do!

What you've seen was put together by a very small team over the past year. We felt that this vision needed to be shown rather than talked about so we invested our own money to build the technical and visual prototype that shows just how Star Citizen is going to push the limits of PC games.

Instead of taking this prototype to a publisher for a green light, we are cutting out the middleman and taking it to you.

You as the customer get the ultimate vote in whether we make this game. Your dollars are your votes and the better we do the more resources we’ll have to bring you a great game.

We have investors that have agreed to contribute the balance we need to complete this game as long as we can validate that there is a demand for a high end PC space game. By meeting or surpassing our target on Kickstarter you tell the world that you want a PC based Space Sim and allow us to make this game.

But we're offering more than just the chance to support the platform and genre.

As an early backer, you’ll also be getting a lot more than just the finished game.

For the people who pledge for their spaceship in the Star Citizen universe, you’ll be part of a select club that has exclusive access to early gameplay and behind the scenes development updates.

The people who pledge for their spaceships will get to test-fly them long before the general public. 12 months in, we will allow the early backers to play the multiplayer space combat Alpha, and then 20-22 months in they will get to play the Star Citizen Beta, adventuring around the huge open galaxy, well before the general public. We are going to limit our alpha slots to 200,000 as we want to stress test the game with real users, but will not be ready for the full load until we have finished Beta.

In addition, part of the money we are asking for is budgeted to maintain the Roberts Space Industries site with constant updates. Our goal is for the game’s website to be live from day one, constantly giving information about what’s happening in the galaxy even before the game is live, sharing interesting insights into the development process and canvassing the early backers for their opinions. Roberts Space Industries should be the first stop into the Star Citizen universe. When we say we want to involve the community, we really mean it!

Finally we are offering the pledge slots a discount to what the final digital price will be. Like Guild Wars 2, the basic game will be $60, but for the very early backers we are offering the entry tier at $30. But hurry! Slots are limited!

Our hope is that these benefits are compelling enough for you to pledge for your spaceship today.

Please support us, tell your friends and participate in the discussion. An amazing Interstellar adventure waits!

Risks and challenges

We are aiming for a AAA game experience. But depending on the funding levels reached, we may have to limit the experience for the initially released game version. Nonetheless, Chris Roberts and his teams have shown consistently that they are able to develop epic story-based games. Even with our very limited self-funding we have been able to do already a lot of work which is why we can show you not just concept art and a cinematic trailer, but an extensive demo of actual game play. So, we are confident that even with limited means we will be able to deliver an amazing experience.

FAQ

No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.

Citizen Cards are physical props to prove that you have supported Star Citizen and will be one of the first pilots in space when the testing process starts. They will be wallet sized cards that you can carry with you anywhere you go. Citizen cards will also appear in the game itself, showing your character’s social standing, credit account and so on. We’re hoping to make them available to backers by Christmas 2012, so you can gift the game to friends and have something to show for it!

We’re working on concept art right now that will show you the different levels of ships! For now, imagine the sort of ship advancement you encounered in Privateer or Freelancer, with the Aurora being the basic ship and others being improved or more specialized craft. The top-of-the-line ship in our pledge campaign is the RSI Constellation, which is a multi-person craft that includes a turret and a smaller fighter that can be manned by your friends!

Players will be given full control of their game! When operating private servers, players will be able and encouraged to mod the game. It doesn’t stop there, though: we hope to institute a ‘mod approval’ process that will allow the best of the best player created ships and other additions to be integrated into the central persistent world as well.

Yes! You will always have your ‘pledge’ ship, but you can purchase and fly others to your heart’s content in the finished game. Star Citizen will feature plenty of other ships and we expect players will want to earn credits and figure out which suits their particular style of play best. You can also upgrade to a bigger ship during the crowdfunding phase by pledging additional money.

Star Citizen is a PC game through and through and could never be played on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or WiiU. We currently plan to support Windows and are examining our options regarding possible Linux and Macintosh releases. The Cloud Imperium team includes many Linux and Macintosh fans!

No, we plan to support many languages. A huge percentage of space sim and PC gaming fans come from Europe and especially Germany, and we want to make sure Star Citizen is accessible to everyone. The game will initially be localized to French, German and Spanish with plans to handle other languages afterwards.

The purpose of the higher stretch goals is to ensure that the game-as-described is finished in the two year time period. We intend to build the game that Chris Roberts described at GDC Online regardless, but without additional funding we are going to have to do it one piece at a time, starting with Squadron 42, rather than as a single larger production. With more funding we can include more ships, systems, unique locations, animations and cinematic sequences.

Publishers are useful in the old physical distribution world, but the Internet is the great equalizer. Notch didn’t need a publisher to reach 20-million Minecraft fans. Riot games didn’t need a publisher to reach 30-million League of Legends players, and Wargaming.net didn’t need a publisher to reach 20-million World of Tanks gamers. If we were building a big “AAA” console game it would be crazy to try without a publisher. But we want to build a PC game and publishers increase costs because of their need to recoup their sizable overhead cost. We want to make sure all the money raised goes directly to the development of the game. So we’re throwing ourselves on the mercy of the PC gamers out there that share our vision and passion for the platform and the space combat genre to raise money outside of the “cartel” of traditional publishers. The game will cost less, be more creatively pure, and, most importantly, be built for the real “core” audience – not some corporate suit worried about including all the casual gamers.

To play Star Citizen you need only to buy the initial game. There will never be a monthly charge for usage. Some in-game items may be available as microtransactions, but we will NEVER sell anything that can’t be acquired through honest (and fun!) gameplay.

Star Citizen will feature gameplay similar to the original Wing Commander and Privateer, with a more realistic physics system. This means that it is NOT a ‘click to kill’ interface like most modern MMOs; your success in combat is going to depend as much on your skill with a space fighter as it will with your ship upgrades and your pocket book.

There will be a lot of optimization in the next 24-months, plus the usual fast pace of technology, so it is hard to say absolutely. At the moment you will be able to play it on a dual core PC with a GTX 460 or greater and 4GB of system memory. If you’re running an i7 2500, 2600, 2700 or better with a GTX 670 or greater then the stars are the limit! Since the game is built on CryEngine, their system requirements will stay roughly the same as ours.

Since this is a fundraising campaign only a portion of your pledge will be allocable to the value of the physical goods shipped to you. We will determine this value on the basis of the prices we would charge for those physical items outside of a fundraising campaign and comparable to similar transactions in the marketplace. This reduced value will be stated on a pro-forma invoice accompanying the shipment, and this is usually the value on which any import duties and import VAT will be computed by the authorities upon actual shipment. There are exempted amounts depending on the import country. For example, in the EU shipments under €150 will not be subject to import duties, and shipments under €22.50 will not incur any import VAT. In addition, only VAT amounts over €10 are collected, so that effectively all shipments under a value of €50 will be free.

A particular situation exists with respect to the USB stick. If the stick will be loaded with your digital game and other items then the value of those digital items will be considered when determining the value of the stick for importation purposes. Again, this value would not be your pledge amount but the price that we would charge outside the fundraising campaign for those digital items.

In order to avoid taxation on those digital game items we will offer a convenient download button directly on your MyAccount page, together with the option to receive the USB stick empty. Alternatively, if you wish to receive the USB stick fully loaded with the items then the value of those digital items will be included in the pro-forma invoice.

Support this project

Select this reward

Pledge $5 or more
About $5

THE KICKSTARTER: The Electro Skin Hull Enhancement for existing Roberts Space Industries ship owners. Can switch hull appearance at a flick of a switch. Includes special skin to show that you've backed twice.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $110 or more
About $110

DIGITAL FREELANCER: The finished game for your PC with your MISC Freelancer ready to fly (High-end ship focused more for trade and exploration) + 5,000 Galactic Credits + Exclusive access to the Alpha and Beta + digital copy of game soundtrack + full color digital map of the game universe + digital copy of Engineering Manual for modders

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $1,000 or more
About $1,000

HIGH ADMIRAL: Finished game for your PC with your top-of-the-line RSI Constellation spaceship ready to fly + Exclusive access to the Alpha and Beta + 20,000 Galactic Credits + Spaceship shaped USB stick with the game and all digital elements + CD of game soundtrack + Fold-up glossy full color map of the game universe + Set of 5 Ship blueprints + 6-inch physical model of your in-game ship + Hardcover copy of 'The Making of Star Citizen' including loads of behind the scenes images and info, prelim concept art, development stories + 30min video conference with Chris Roberts to ask him all the questions you like + Platinum Citizens Card

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $5,000 or more
About $5,000

SPACE MARSHALL: The finished game for your PC with your top of the line RSI Constellation spaceship ready to fly + 20,000 Galactic Credits + Exclusive access to the Alpha and Beta + Spaceship shaped USB stick of game and all digital elements + CD of game soundtrack + Fold up glossy full color map of the game universe + Set of 5 Ship Blueprints + 8-inch painted model of your in-game ship + Hardcover copy of 'The Making of Star Citizen' including loads of behind the scenes images and info, prelim concept art, development stories + Spend half a day with Chris Roberts and get into the details of the development + Black Citizens Card

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $10,000
About $10,000

Title: WING COMMANDER: The finished game for your PC with your top of the line RSI Constellation spaceship ready to fly + 20,000 Galactic Credits + Custom skin for your RSI Constellation Spaceship + Name your spaceship (after you if you want!) + Exclusive access to the Alpha and Beta + 1 Million Mile High Club Ownership - Invite your guests to your private club in the game + Spaceship shaped USB stick of game and all digital elements + CD of game soundtrack + Fold up glossy full color map of the game universe + Set of 5 Ship Blueprints + 10-inch painted model of your in-game ship + Hardcover copy of 'The Making of Star Citizen' including loads of behind the scenes images and info, prelim concept art, development stories + Hang for a day with Chris Roberts and key peeps on the dev team + Titanium Citizens Card